Ports plans now looking like a train wreck

Today’s injunc­tion stop­ping Ports of Auck­land pro­gress­ing its plans to dis­miss and replace its work­force, com­bined with the company’s plan of an indef­i­nite lock­out, leaves Auck­land Coun­cil with no choice but to inter­vene to find a work­able solu­tion to the indus­tri­al dis­pute, the Mar­itime Union said today.

Today the Employ­ment Court con­firmed the union had an arguable case that Ports of Auck­land had act­ed unlaw­ful­ly in some aspects relat­ed to col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing.

Until the mat­ter could be heard in full on 16 May, the Court has ordered Ports of Auck­land against pro­ceed­ing with its plans to dis­miss and replace its work­ers.

On Fri­day the Court will con­sid­er the issues of the return to work of the work­ers who end­ed strike action last week, and of the legal­i­ty of the Port lock out notice effec­tive from 6 April.

Mar­itime Union pres­i­dent Gar­ry Parsloe said the par­ties can keep slog­ging the issues out in Court, but in the end the solu­tion to this issue is fin­ish­ing nego­ti­a­tions for a col­lec­tive employ­ment agree­ment, to get the Ports of Auck­land up and work­ing again.

“Ports work­ers remain ready to return to work and get the Ports work­ing on behalf of the busi­ness­es and cus­tomers of Auck­land,” he said.

“The peo­ple of Auck­land are los­ing mil­lions a day in returns, exporters and importers and oth­er busi­ness­es are bear­ing extra costs and the work­ers are fac­ing severe finan­cial hard­ship.”

“The only group that appear to be hav­ing a good time is the Ports of Auck­land Board.  Auck­lan­ders need to ques­tion why Board mem­bers con­tin­ue to col­lect their mas­sive salaries for ini­ti­at­ing a train wreck of a plan that now is not only in tat­ters, but is unlike­ly to be res­ur­rect­ed,” Gar­ry Parsloe said.

The union has asked the May­or and Coun­cil to step in and hopes to address Coun­cil at its meet­ing on Thurs­day.

Union mem­bers will meet tomor­row at noon to dis­cuss today’s devel­op­ments.